The Drumbeat Years (girlxgirl)

1

1

31st. October 1988

Ba-dump.

The drumstick tapped the skin of a drum that Tina could not see. The venue had fallen into darkness as the warm-up band had taken to the stage. The press of bodies against her only served to make the anticipation of the coming set even more exciting.

Whispers and murmurs travelled through the crowd around her and she felt herself pushed closer to the metal barriers. She had already lost Kyle in the mass of bodies, but she knew he would find her. Perhaps not here, at the edge of the stage, dead centre, almost, of the mosh pit, where, soon, people would begin to throw their hands around, bouncing heads and jumping in furious time with the coming music.

Ba-dump, da-da-da-da. Thump. Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta.

It sounded like the drums were recreating a sound of some kind. Something familiar, yet unlike music. More a representation of something else. She couldn't see any of the band members. Not even silhouettes, but she could hear those drums, bashing a staccato, rhythm-less sound that seemed to batter Tina's ears.

The stage lights began to rise, warming the scene, and a spotlight fell upon the drummer, head down, hands flashing as they beat, beat, beat the skins of their drums. Then the guitar began. A slow, mournful, stop-and-start beginning to a tune that had already had a long introduction from the drummer. Tina saw sweat fly from the drummer's hands as the noise became more urgent, louder. Drums struck harder, and faster.

Twangs of the guitar strings continued, building up, rising and falling and always with that out-of-sorts drumbeat in the background. She couldn't shake the thought that the sounds of the drums were familiar, but weren't music. In the middle of the opening of the set, excitement building all around her, Tina fought to remember what the drums sounded like.

"Oh my god! I can't believe it!" Elbows pushing people aside, Kyle shouted in Tina's ear. "You know what this is, right? I played the record for you the other night. Damn! The album's only been out a month!"

"It sounds familiar, yeah." She had a vague memory of Kyle proselytising about some band or another. "What is it?"

"Metallica." With his elbow resting on her shoulder, Kyle grinned at her. "One."

She understood it, now. The drums had beat out the sounds of a battle. The 'ba-dumps' were shells exploding. The 'da-da-da' and 'ta-ta-ta' were bullets flying in rapid fire from the sticks of the drummer, laying musical suppressing fire above their heads. Now she thought about it, it was incredible. She had never heard anything like it.

As the introduction intensified, the drummer became even more animated. The sticks twirled in their fingers. They bounced in their seat, using their entire body to put every ounce of themselves into recreating that battlefield cacophony. And then they raised their eyes. The first person they looked at stood at the very edge of the stage. Tina.

Ba-dump.

Tina clutched her chest, feeling the thin material of the fresh-bought t-shirt. It already felt soaked, but that wasn't the reason she had raised her hand. As soon as she had seen the eyes of the drummer, her heart had tripped, overpowering every single other sound within the venue. Kyle's hooting and cheering fell into the distance. The crowd fell away, and Tina felt her breath catch for a very different reason. She had seen a goddess and that goddess played drums.

"I can't remember anything"

The lead guitarist and singer, leaned into his microphone, held by the stand, his wet hair falling about his face like rattan curtains. Tina, however, had eyes only for the drummer. Several times, the drummer had looked up, now, catching Tina's eyes and, every time, Tina's heart had jumped.